Raise the Dead
by ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: Dipper attends his own funeral. Like most events in Gravity Falls, it doesn't go quite as planned.
1. Chapter 1

Dipper didn't register the word 'kill' until a good few seconds later. To be fair, he was fully concentrated on trying to escape Bill's grasp.

The red light shone down on the twins, and they turned as one to see Dipper's symbol standing out against the white of Bill's eye.

"Meenie…" He was saying, raising one hand in preparation to snap. Dipper felt his sister grab his arm, squeezing it until her knuckles were white.

The symbol switched to Mabel's. "Miney…"

Dipper gripped his sister's arms and stared at her, mouth open but no words coming out. She turned to him as well, wearing an expression of pure terror no doubt reflected on his own face. Because they both knew which symbol this rhyme would end on.

Somebody had to interrupt this! He didn't want to die, he didn't want to die, he didn't-

"YOU!"

And amid the screaming of his sister and the desperate cry of, "Wait!" and the pinetree casting a damning shadow in the red light… there was a snap.

 _A snap_.

And Dipper's world faded to black.

* * *

Dipper didn't know how long he spent in the darkness. He didn't see, he didn't think… he just existed, a tiny flame burning in the endless abyss of nothingness.

But slowly, steadily, it was coming back to him. Bits and pieces of his mind: memories, thoughts, and feelings. The sensation of a chilling cold at the core of his being, and he shivered.

Then Dipper opened his eyes.

"Where… where am I?" Dipper looked around with a frown, rubbing his head. "I'm in the forest? How did I get here?"

He thought back to the memory of Weirdmaggeddon, the struggle with Bill, the _snap_. "Oh jeez, how long was I out? Mabel, I'm coming!"

Orienting himself, Dipper turned and ran in the direction of the Mystery Shack, his mind racing. Everything looked normal, so they beat Bill, right? What happened? Was everybody okay? Was the 'kill' thing just some horrible prank?

He turned the corner straight into a stone statue of Bill, hand outstretched and mossy. Startled, he couldn't stop in time and ran straight into-

Straight through it. Dipper let out a yelp and stared at his stomach for a second. This was bad, really bad, but he was nearly at the Shack! He had to keep running.

"Mabel!"

The Shack was in sight, surrounded by construction workers and scaffolds. Dipper dodged past them – he was noticeably lighter on his feet than usual – and made his way up to the door.

He extended one hand, hesitated, and tried to knock. His hand went through without a sound, and he shivered.

"Agh, Bill, what did you do to me?" Dipper phased through, then darted to the stairs. "Mabel! Don't worry, I'm still here – kind of. That doesn't sound too reassuring, but I'm here!"

Attic floor. The bedroom door was closed, so he phased through it. There he saw Mabel, sitting on her bed facing the wall, looking through what was probably her scrapbook. His own bed looked exactly the same as it had when he last slept in it: messy and covered with books.

Was that dust gathering on the sheets? Actually, no, he didn't want to think about that.

He had to think about his twin.

"Mabel?" Dipper tentatively walked over to her, noticing that she was actually reading his journal rather than her scrapbook. That was weird; not did Bill burn them right in front of his eyes, she never really had that much interest in – oh my gosh, Mabel was crying. Slow, steady tears falling from tired reddened eyes. She looked terrible.

"Hey, Mabel, it's okay!" He reached a hand out. "I'm right here sis, can't you hear me?"

His hand phased through, much to his horror.

"Can't you see me?" Dipper stuck his hand right in her field of vision and waved, but she didn't respond in the slightest. "Mabel?"

There was a knock on the door, startling both of them. Dipper watched his twin shove the journal under her pillow and whirl around to face Grunkle Stan. The lines on his pale face and the defeated sink of his shoulders made him look far older than he ever had before.

"Hey, uh, pumpkin." Stan tried for a smile. "How's it going up here?"

Mabel sighed deeply. "I miss Dipper."

"I'm right here," Dipper mumbled, walking over to his own corner and sitting on the dusty bed.

"I know. I'm so sorry, kid."

"It's not your fault, Grunkle Stan. You saved the world with that whole clothes switching-dealie!"

"Thanks. Still, if I'd just been a little faster…" Stan looked away, and his hands tightened on the doorknob until it looked ready to break. After a long moment, he took a deep breath. "Nevermind. You get an early night, okay? The funeral's tomorrow… if you want to go."

"Yeah, I'm going. Don't worry about me, Grunkle Stan, I'll be ready."

"Sounds, uh, sounds good, sweetie. I'll be downstairs; those construction guys need your Grunkle Stan to keep'em in line! Heh heh… yeah."

He closed the door softly, leaving Mabel to retrieve the journal. Dipper watched her flip through the pages, watched the tears trickle down her face at an absolute loss of what to do.

"I'm sorry, Mabel." He said, but there was no indication she'd heard him. "I'll find a way to make you see me again, but for now just… hang in there, okay? I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

That first night was long. Dipper paced and thought of a million different ways of how to contact his sister. Well, maybe a few ideas were repeated, considering he didn't have the means to write down anything.

Regardless of how many he had, none of them worked. He couldn't possess anything, couldn't touch anything… heck, he couldn't even fly. This was worse than the time he was stuck in the… in the… ugh. His memory was still a little fuzzy, but he'd definitely been in a similar yet better situation to this.

And all through the night, Mabel sat on her bed and read, not even stopping to change into her pajamas. She wasn't crying anymore; instead she wore an expression of deep concentration, something Dipper had rarely ever seen on her. The serious frown, the determined stare, the bags under her eyes… never before did she so resemble her twin.

She stayed awake until the sun grazed the horizon. At that point Dipper watched her sigh, gently slide the book under her bed, roll over and-

Knock, knock. It was Stan again, looking somehow even worse than he did the night before. "Hey, pumpkin. Time to get up, if you wanna catch the… you know."

Mabel jumped up. "Grunkle Stan! It's, wow, it's early, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Sorry kid; your folks didn't want to stay here any longer than they had to. That's, uh, fair enough." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, we're hoping to get going in ten minutes, okay?"

"Don't worry, I'll be ready." She rubbed her eyes. "See you downstairs."

Stan left, and immediately after the door slammed Mabel slammed right into the pillow, letting out a groan of frustration. "Ugh, I feel like my eyes want to kill me! Dipper, how did you pull these all nighters?"

Dipper blinked. "Well, usually I drink-"

"Gotta get up," Mabel continued on like she hadn't heard him… because she didn't hear him, because he was a ghost. "Can't lay here, Mabel. Gotta, do this."

She dragged herself out of bed, stopping to retrieve the journal from under her bed and stuff it into her sweater. Dipper watched this, wondering what she was suddenly carrying it around for. Maybe it was for protection – she did live through Weirdmaggedon, after all – or was it something to show at the funeral? He didn't know, and he couldn't ask.

Shaking those thoughts out of his head, Dipper followed Mabel downstairs. There she was greeted by Stan and Ford (Ford! Come on, even the paranormal researcher didn't see him. Or… emote at all. He just sat there, staring into a mug of cold coffee with a terribly blank expression.) and after a few weak hellos Stan served her up some pancakes.

"Here you go, kid! A nice big stack outta get us through this day. You hungry, Stanford?"

Ford remained motionless.

"Good, good." Stan slid a tall stack onto his brother's plate. "Eat up."

Dipper stared at the scene of grieving faces as they picked at their plates, a mix of sadness and frustration boiling inside him. He was _right here_! If he could just give them a sign…

The sound of a car outside, and Stan looked up. "That must be Soos. You, uh, you knuckleheads ready?"

Mabel jumped from her seat and ran out the door. Ford slowly swung a foot out and trudged forwards, back bent like he was shouldering a great weight. Stan clapped him on the arm and the two walked out.

Dipper walked out and- oh, there was Soos and Wendy. Great, they also looked like hell, grieving for somebody who was _right in front of them_ -

"Whoo, it's a bit chilly out here," Stan made for the car. "Let's get going, eh Soos? Soos?"

They got into the car, and started driving to the funeral. Dipper couldn't quite stay in the car, but he seemed to be able to keep up well enough. It was easy to run fast when one was literally made of nothing.

The car pulled up by the graveyard. It was filled with people – the whole town it seemed – milling around. They stopped and stared when Mabel stepped out; two people Dipper recognised as his parents pushed through and wrapped her in a hug.

He watched them gently put her down, shooting Stan icy glares as they led her to the front row of chairs facing an open coffin.

His open coffin. He really was dead.

Dipper watched as everyone began to take a seat. Mayor Cutebiker walked up to the podium, cleared his throat, and began to speak.

"We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Dipper Pines, named town hero for his part in defeating Bill and ending Weirdmaggeddon."

"Bill? Weirmaggeddon?" Dipper's mother whispered to her husband. "What are they talking about?"

McGucket leaned over and waved a hand. "Nevermind all that, fellas."

The Mayor continued. "Dipper was a bright young man with a bright future. Just from this one summer, he managed to help everybody in this town. We should be throwing a birthday for him, but since we can't, this is the least we can do. Now, let us hear from Dipper's own twin sister, Mabel."

Dipper watched Mabel stand up, clutching the journal to her chest with a look of steeled determination. She walked with purpose up to the podium, placed the book on the ledger and began flipping through pages as everyone watched.

What was she doing? He walked a little closer (keeping the contents of the coffin firmly out of view) just as she cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Hey, everyone! Sorry for the wait, just had to find something. Anyway, you all know me. Mabel. And you probably expect that I'm gonna stand here and talk about how awesome my brother is." She laughed; the sound was tinged with bitterness. "Believe me, I would totally have done that. If I didn't have a better idea, I'd have gone on for hours about what an amazing, selfless, caring… wonderful brother he was." A pause, and then, "But I had a better idea! Listen to this!"

Dipper frowned as Mabel began to speak in… Latin? She butchered the pronunciation so badly, it was hard to tell. For a moment everyone looked at her in confusion but Stanford, who had jumped up from the back of the row with his brother in tow, racing towards her before-

The ground shook, and all around the graveyard rotting hands broke free from the earth, drawing screams of terror from the living. Dipper recognized that incantation, now.

"Ugh, Mabel!" Dipper jumped out of the way of an emerging zombie; not that it could have hurt him in any way, but self preservation was a force of habit. "How could you think this was a good idea? Well, actually I can see where you're coming from, but-"

A loud shot into the air interrupted them. Everyone looked up to see Stanford standing by the podium, him and his brother on either side of Mabel.

"Everybody, get to your cars!" Stanford aimed and blasted the head off a zombie seconds from chomping down on Gideon's face. "Run for it! Now!"

Everyone bolted as fast as they could. The twins followed, but were slowed down by a certain someone.

"Wait!" Mabel cried, one hand on the coffin. "We haven't got Dipper!"

"Mabel, the incantation you read hasn't brought your brother back to life. We have to go now, or we'll be surrounded!"

"Come on Mabel, you heard Ford! We gotta move!"

"But-" A sickly pale hand rose out of the coffin and closed around Mabel's wrist in a death grip. Mabel yelped in pain. "Ow, ow, Dipper!"

But Dipper was watching helplessly from the side, wringing his hands in panic. "Mabel, that's not me! Get out of there!"

Luckily Stanford had the same idea. "Take your hands off my niece, zombie!" He aimed his blaster at the hand and fired; the zombie in the coffin cried out as its hand was severed.

"Dipper!" Mabel made another lunge for the coffin but Stanley caught her, cradling her struggling body to his chest as his brother cleared a path to safety.

"Sorry kid, we've gotta go," Stan spoke gently to his niece pounding and shrieking and sobbing on his shoulder. "That wasn't Dipper."

Behind them, phasing through the stumbling army of zombies, the real Dipper followed.

* * *

 **Edited 2/2/17 with thanks to rcppcsPOTTER**


	3. Chapter 3

"Yes, Mayor. So everyone's accounted for? Good, good." Ford paced around the kitchen table as he spoke on the phone. "Don't worry, the evacuation will only be for a couple hours; you have my word, the zombies will be gone by tomorrow. Thank you."

Stan looked up when he hung up. "How's the town taking it?"

"At least everyone's safe. I have a sonic blast prepared that will wipe out every zombie within a fifteen mile radius; it won't be pretty, but it'll be effective." Ford folded his hands behind his back. "But I'm afraid we have a more pressing problem."

"You talking about Mabel?" The girl was in her room, crying her little heart out. Unbeknownst to both her and the Stans, Dipper was up there trying to comfort her.

"Yes. That stunt she pulled was incredibly dangerous! I thought she'd know better than to raise the dead!"

"Cut her some slack, Poindexter." Stan crossed his arms. "Her brother's dead. Of course she'd try anything to try and get him back."

"I understand that, Stanley. But what she did could easily have ended up with some of the townsfolk getting bitten! At the very least, we need to confiscate the journal."

Stan crossed his arms. "Alright, but you let me talk to her about it. Trust me, the last thing she needs right now is anything close to a lecture."

"Well… you're right, Stanley." Stanford looked away. "We've all made mistakes. Why should I be so hard on Mabel when it's my fault her brother is dead in the first place?"

"Stanford..."

"It's true! I was the one who made the deal with Bill, and the boy paid the price."

Stan crossed his arms. "Well, then you could say it's my fault for not shaking your dumb hand when we had the chance! Or not stopping Bill before he… he…" The old man took a deep breath, and composed himself. "Look. Mabel's staying with us one more day. We can do this all we want once her parents pick her up, but for now let's just keep it together, okay? For Mabel."

Ford nodded solemnly. "For Mabel."

Stan headed upstairs. He made his way to the attic, reached up, and knocked gently on the door.

Mabel's voice came from the other side "Come in." He opened the door slowly, revealing a teary, blotchy-faced Mabel sitting on the bed. Dipper was next to her, trying as best he could to put an arm around his sister without phasing through her.

"Hey, pumpkin," Stan walked over and sat where Dipper was, causing him to scoot over with a frown. "How're you feeling?"

Mabel sniffed. "I… I don't know. Okay, I guess?" A pause. "Sorry for hitting you earlier."

"That's okay. Your old man can take it." Stan wrapped her in a hug. "I'm just glad you're safe."

They stayed like that for a while, finding comfort in each other's embrace. Mabel opened her eyes to see the window outside, and the zombies milling about on the ground. "So what's going to happen now? Are we going to do another karaoke song?"

"Nah, Ford has some nerdy sound thing that's going to take care of all of them. It'll take about an hour to charge up." He pulled away. "And then tomorrow you're off, kiddo."

Behind him Dipper felt a flutter of panic. From what he remembered from the page in the journal about ghosts, they couldn't go very far from the place they died. There was no way he'd be able to follow his sister to Oregon.

"Will I ever see you again?"

He smiled wanly. "That's up to your parents to decide." Oh god, his parents were never going to let Mabel go to Gravity Falls ever again. He had to do something!

Dipper jumped up. "Come on, I'm right here! Mabel! Grunkle Stan!"

"Well, I did come up here to ask you something." Stan straightened up, oblivious. "My brother was wondering if he could borrow his journal. It's… uh… for the zombie thing."

"Mabel!" This still wasn't working. He needed some way to make contact, but how? Think, think…

"I got it." Mabel reached under her bed and pulled it out. "Probably a good thing to take it away from me, haha. That was crazy."

"Hey, I don't blame you." Stan took it, flipping through it to the portal page. "Doing crazy stuff to save our family is what the Pines do best, right?"

"Haha, yeah." A pause. "So that sound thing Ford's doing, it's gonna be like the three part harmony?"

"Yup. It won't be a pretty sight, all those exploding zombie heads."

Mabel grimanced, rubbing her bruised wrist. "Even Dipper?"

"Ugh… yeah. That's, um…" Stan scratched his head. "That's not really Dipper, though. That's just the body."

No, Dipper thought, it wasn't. It was the only thing of him they could see, though; if only he could- oh, my god. He had an idea!

"Yeah," Mabel was speaking, her words slowly fading out as Dipper dashed for the stairs. "That's a gross thing to think about…"

Dipper stumbled into the living room, where Ford was setting up what he assumed was the three-part harmony device. He had to move fast. He phased out of the front door, past the barricades, outside.

Zombies had crowded around the Mystery Shack, drawn by the smells and sounds of the living. They couldn't get in, though; all the doors and windows were boarded up and the undead were too dumb to try climbing without seeing anybody on the roof. Dipper tiptoed around them, looking for a certain face.

His face. As he kept searching, he was drawn away from the Shack, down the road… wow, there were a lot of dead people in Gravity Falls. He was beginning to worry if he'd find his body in time.

Dipper's search lead him to the graveyard, and he took a quick peek into the coffin. His body was gone... leaving a trail of dried blood in its wake. With a frown he followed it, happening upon a pale, brown-haired creature in a suit lying face down in the mud, groaning.

He saw the stump and cringed, glad for once he didn't have a stomach to feel nauseous from. With a deep breath, Dipper reached out a hand to the zombie's head. It phased through, but this was different. There was a certain draw here, a familiarity… like he was meant to be in here.

Dipper closed his eyes… and he was suddenly face down in the mud, assaulted by a wave of pain and cold and hunger. It was so overwhelming he almost pulled away, but instead clenched his hands- hand, and sat up.

Oh, god. This was way more difficult than he had anticipated. He stood up, stumbled, steadied himself, and started forwards. It was a long walk back to the Mystery Shack in this body, but at least it was a start.

What was he going to do once he got there? Dipper didn't know, but it was almost impossible to think with the pain shooting up his right arm and the hunger for brains messing with his head. Seriously, even imagining Mabel was difficult without also wanting to eat her brains, which was… disturbing. He decided to just focus on getting there, which was strenuous enough for his battered body.

Time passed, and Dipper looked up to see the Mystery Shack looming above him. He staggered back and forth, scanning the building for a way in. He scrambled to climb up the wall; having never been particularly athletic in life, it was no surprise that a zombified, one-armed version of him had no such luck scaling it.

Dipper fell backwards, every muscle in his body burning. He made an effort to get up, stretching out a trembling hand… and it fell back, all strength spent. He couldn't give up, he needed to eat Mabel's- no, that wasn't… keep your eyes open! He forced himself to look forward, at a hole underneath the Mystery Shack.

A hole… A hole! Dipper clawed in the dirt, dragging himself forwards inch by inch, tendons standing out in sharp contrast to his pale clammy skin. He reached the entrance… a little more forwards, and felt gravity take hold, dragging him down to the depths like a ragdoll. He landed on his stomach, winded, in pain, cold, hungry… and exhausted.

And there Dipper rested.

* * *

"Okay, you two," Stanford said with forced cheeriness as the three took the elevator to the third floor. "This won't take a minute, and then we can go back up."

Mabel blinked. "Why can't we listen to the three part harmony?"

"It's been heavily amplified. Listening to it would surely blow out your ears."

"Oh, okay."

"We can detonate the charge from down here." The doors slid open to the lab. "Once the zombies are dead, we can-"

"Hot Belgian Waffles!" Stan gripped his niece's shoulder upon catching sight of a zombie lying face down on the floor. "How did one of those make it down here?"

Mabel frowned at the mess of brown hair. It was dark down in the lab, but it almost looked like…

"I really need to patch that hole in the foundations." Ford brought out his gun. "No matter. I can do that once-"

" _Wait_!" Mabel tore herself out of Stan's grip.

"Mabel, don't touch that thing!"

"Guys, it's not just any old zombie." She ran to its side and lifted its head up. "It's Dipper!"

"Is that... really? Yeesh, he looks awful."

Stanford's eyes widened. "Of all the zombies to make it down here... how is that possible?"

Mabel's smile stretched from ear to ear. "I know. Because Dipper's still in here!"


	4. Chapter 4

Dipper came to outside his body. He knew this because he was just suddenly there, staring at Mabel and Stan and Ford staring at the zombie he had dragging into the lab. Later, he would think about this moment and appreciate how painless being a ghost made waking up after such an ordeal, but for now he was listening.

"Whoa, whoa," Stan was saying to Ford as he leaned over the unconscious zombie. "I thought you said raising the dead didn't bring him back, Ford."

"Well, normally it doesn't, but this one made it all the way here from the graveyard."

"So did all the other ones outside." Stan motioned to the security cameras. "Maybe it's just me, but I don't think we should be jumping to conclusions-"

"Too late. Already jumped." Snatching a journal out of Ford's coat, Mabel raced through the pages until she found what she was looking for. "There! For a zombie cure we need formaldehyde, cinnamon, four large eggs and some fish-shaped dirt, pronto!"

Ford nodded. "Cinnamon, dirt and eggs can be easily found around the Shack. Once we get rid of the zombies, I can pop into town and retrieve something to extract the formaldehyde from. Which reminds me..."

He pressed a button on a console. Nothing happened.

"Err, what was that?"

"Check the cameras. All the zombies within a fifteen mile radius are now dead."

Dipper checked; they were, all except for his body safe underground. This was going great!

"Right," Stan cleared his throat. "Mabel, sweetie, how's about you go upstairs? Get those ingredients you were talking about."

"What are you gonna do?"

He crossed his arms. "We'll take care of the zombie, right Poindexter?"

"I suppose he could do with some basic first aid-"

"Yes, that."

"Okay!" Mabel skipped into the elevator, humming a little tune as it started to close. Dipper grinned and made to follow, but then Stan started talking.

"You're sure this is gonna work?"

"Well, not sure. Most zombie cures only restore life to bitten victims, not ones risen from the dead. But-"

"So why the hell are we telling Mabel her brother's coming back?"

Both Dipper and Ford were caught off guard by the anger in his tone. "Stan..."

"Sorry, sorry. That just came out." He cleared his throat. "Look. I know you were doing good work, boarding up the Shack and shooting zombies and junk, but while you were doing that, I was taking care of Mabel. She'd just tried to bring her brother back, and it didn't work. How do you think she felt?"

Ford shuffled awkwardly in place. "Uh... not good, I imagine. She was quite inconsolable in the car."

"Yeah, 'not good' is a bit of an understatement. She was all worked up, telling me about this plan she'd spent the last week sorting out, just to have it fall apart in front of her." Stan sighed. "So what I'm trying to say is... is this gonna wind up making her feel like that again?"

No it wouldn't, Dipper thought. If they made the cure, there was no reason he couldn't come back... in theory. This possessing stuff was still a little new.

"I... I don't know." Ford looked down at the zombie, which had started to groan. "I mean, there's a chance, but... what do we do now?"

"Well, this is already happening. Nothing's gonna separate Mabel from her brother if she can help it!" He gave a short chuckle. "Anyway, I just wanted to say my piece. What are, what are we doin' here?"

They both leaned down over the zombie. Dipper went upstairs to be with his sister.


End file.
